The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered

Wednesday, April 2, 1788 [Alexander Hamilton] (excerpt)

To the People of the State of New York:

IT HAS been mentioned as one of the advantages to be expected from the co-operation of the Senate, in
the business of appointments, that it would contribute to the stability of the administration. The consent of
that body would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint. A change of the Chief Magistrate,
therefore, would not occasion so violent or so general a revolution in the officers of the government as
might be expected, if he were the sole disposer of offices. Where a man in any station had given
satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new President would be restrained from attempting a change in
favor of a person more agreeable to him, by the apprehension that a discountenance of the Senate might
frustrate the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit upon himself. Those who can best estimate the
value of a steady administration....

Federalist No. 79

The Judiciary Continued

Wednesday, June 18, 1788 [Alexander Hamilton] (excerpt)

To the People of the State of New York:

NEXT to permanency in office, nothing can contribute more to the independence of the judges than a
fixed provision for their support. The remark made in relation to the President is equally applicable here.
In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.
And we can never hope to see realized in practice, the complete separation of the judicial from the
legislative power, in any system which leaves the former dependent for pecuniary resources on the
occasional grants of the latter. The enlightened friends to good government in every State, have seen
cause to lament the want of precise and explicit precautions in the State constitutions on this head. Some
of these indeed have declared that permanent salaries should be established for the judges; but the
experiment has in some instances shown that such expressions are not sufficiently definite to preclude
legislative evasions....

Federalist No. 78

The Judiciary Department

Saturday, June 14, 1788 [Alexander Hamilton] (excerpt)

To the People of the State of New York:

WE PROCEED now to an examination of the judiciary department of the proposed government.
In unfolding the defects of the existing Confederation, the utility and necessity of a federal judicature
have been clearly pointed out. It is the less necessary to recapitulate the considerations there urged, as the
propriety of the institution in the abstract is not disputed; the only questions which have been raised being
relative to the manner of constituting it, and to its extent. To these points, therefore, our observations shall
be confined.
The manner of constituting it seems to embrace these several objects: 1st. The mode of appointing the
judges. 2d. The tenure by which they are to hold their places. 3d. The partition of the judiciary authority
between different courts, and their relations to each other....

Federalist No. 80

The Powers of the Judiciary

Saturday, June 21, 1788 [Alexander Hamilton] (excerpt)

To the People of the State of New York:

TO JUDGE with accuracy of the proper extent of the federal judicature, it will be necessary to consider,
in the first place, what are its proper objects.
It seems scarcely to admit of controversy, that the judicary authority of the Union ought to extend to these
several descriptions of cases: 1st, to all those which arise out of the laws of the United States, passed in
pursuance of their just and constitutional powers of legislation; 2d, to all those which concern the
execution of the provisions expressly contained in the articles of Union; 3d, to all those in which the
United States are a party; 4th, to all those which involve the PEACE of the CONFEDERACY, whether
they relate to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations....